


MYEYNL Extras: Mascot Millie

by aimmyarrowshigh



Series: May You Enjoy Your New Life [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Babies, Domestic Fluff, Football | Soccer, M/M, Outtakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 17:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1135199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TIMESTAMP FOR <a href="http://higherarrowsfic.livejournal.com/1011.html">May You Enjoy Your New Life</a>. Takes place between <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/824494/chapters/1564723">Chapter 22</a> and Chapter 23.  <i>I think maybe that I like football?  But my feets does not like it.</i></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><b>REQUEST A MYEYNL EXTRA!</b> <a href="http://aimmyarrowshigh.tumblr.com/submit">Submit a MYEYNL-esque photo on my Tumblr (text prompts not preferred)</a> and I will write you a MYEYNL outtake, timestamp, or scene coda.  They may be short (but at least 100 words) or long. Posting one every Monday in 2014 (schedule <a href="http://aimmyarrowshigh.tumblr.com/ficsched">here</a>.)
            </blockquote>





	MYEYNL Extras: Mascot Millie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RazzleBrazzle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RazzleBrazzle/gifts).



> **Character/Relationships** : Harry/Louis, mentions of Zayn/Perrie and Liam/Danielle  
>  **Rating** : G  
>  **Warnings** : None.  
>  **Story Wordcount** : 1,350  
>  **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. No claim of knowledge or veracity is made towards anyone in the story and no aspersions or claims of character are to be inferred. I have no connection nor permissions from One Direction, X-Factor, Simon Cowell, SyCo Inc., Sony, ITV, or Columbia Records. No libel intended.  
>  **Notes** : REQUEST A MYEYNL EXTRA! [Submit a MYEYNL-esque photo on my Tumblr (text prompts not preferred)](http://aimmyarrowshigh.tumblr.com/submit) and I will write you a MYEYNL outtake, timestamp, or scene coda. They may be short (but at least 100 words) or long, fluffy or angsty, H/L-centric (smut included) or not. Posting one every Monday in 2014 (schedule [here](http://aimmyarrowshigh.tumblr.com/ficsched).)

They’re visiting Anne and Robin in Holmes Chapel, all the adults sitting in the garden and Millie chasing Dusty across the grass with great determination, when Louis looks up from his count of Harry’s fingers and says, “I think I’d like to start up football again. Maybe teach Bean? I just miss it, is all.”

Down at the end of the garden, Dusty evades Millie’s grasp and shoots through a hole in the fence to the fields as Millie catches one foot on the other and does down with a _flump!_ onto her belly.

“She inherited Hazzhead’s coordination,” Gemma says. “Unfortunately.”

“ _Hey_.” Harry isn’t really upset. Millie’s alright with her hands – she rarely misses her mouth when she feeds herself, and she can hold a pencil in her chunky little fingers – but it’s true that she seems to walk slant-wise into walls and tables more than perhaps she should. As Millie pushes herself up, she stumbles on what is likely a small rock and pitches over sideways again, looking befuddled. Dusty is long gone. “Well, yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“Maybe you could coach a weekend league for nursery bebs,” Eleanor muses. “I was in a league like that when I was a bit older than her.”

“Really?” Gemma asks. She hooks her chin over Eleanor’s shoulder. “I can’t imagine it.”

“I was rubbish,” Eleanor agrees. “But we always got to have pizza after, and I loved that part.”

“Millie does love pizza,” Harry agrees. He pulls Louis further into his lap and noses behind his ear to make Louis shiver and shy away from the tickles. “You should go for it. We can ask the other parents at nursery or just get Lux, basically, and let them kick around a little.”

Louis’ eyes shine with lost dreams of floodlights over the pitch. “No. I’m going to properly teach them footie.”

“Whoa!” Millie goes toppling over again on the lawn and lands on her back. They all watch as she sits up again, consternation on her face as she pulls one foot up to examine it near near her nose. “What you fall on this time, mister feets?”

Eleanor snorts and pats Louis’ knee heartily. “You’ve got work cut out for you, coach.”

* * *

Louis loves the smell of a football pitch on a Sunday. Dew brings up a bright vegetal sheen on the grass and the aroma clings to the foggy-wet air that cools his skin; he likes the ripe of his lucky socks, too, and his cleats, although Harry’s banned them from the bedroom cupboard because he says they smell like a German cheesemonger’s lost its refrigeration. But there’s a magic in the gray autumn of a London morning preparing for a good workout, and Louis relishes it: it’s different to the aura before a One Direction show or a taping of the X Factor, but there’s just as much promise and potential floating around.

“Mr. Louis! Charlie keeps touching me!”

Or not. Well, there’s still promise and potential, it just wears the shape of eight three-year-olds in varying levels of comprehension of what they’re here for. 

Louis shakes off the reverie and looks over to where Millie’s friend Su is slapping away the persistent grabby hands of another classmate called Charlie, but Charlie’s already looking away very innocently, just in case. Next to them, Lux just looks cold and confused, and Millie is crouched in the grass, digging a muddy little hole with a stick.

Louis takes the thermos of tea Harry offers at his side, sips, and looks out at his little ragtag team. They’re all wearing matching kits, because Harry got thoroughly overenthusiastic. It’s very cute. And slightly depressing.

“Su, why don’t you go stand by Millie?” Louis suggests. “And Charlie, you stay where you are. Millie, can you stand up and put that stick down, please?”

“I find a sluggy!” Millie reports, giving something a last good poke. “It’s is gross.”

“Yes, it is,” Louis agrees. “Leave it alone and stand up. Lux, are you awake?”

Lux blinks, yawning, and looks startled. Millie leans over and pats Lux’s cheek, leaving a muddy print. 

“Yes, she is awake,” Millie confirms. “She is breaving.”

Louis nods. “Yes, thank you, Millie. Now, everyone look over here at me and Mr. Harry.”

“Mr. Daddy,” Millie corrects.

“Right, you,” Harry says, leaning down to poke her belly. “But pay attention, please.”

Millie scowls and shakes her hair around. “I am helpful!”

Next to her, Lux declares that she needs a nap and curls up in the grass, only to burst into tears at the sight of the slug Millie uncovered in her little hole. Su kicks Charlie in the ankle with her light-up, Velcro trainers, and Charlie wails. Millie and Harry are blissfully in their own world, Millie leading Harry on a combination of leg stretches that she’s learned from Danielle in her baby ballet lessons—fortunately, a few of the other stragglers have cottoned on and are copying her movements with some small degree of success, although no one can tell right from left, including, apparently, Harry. 

Louis heaves a sigh. Then he retrieves Lux from the path of where Millie is leading a very tenuous exercise that _might_ , on some planet, be counted as jumping jacks, and settles her on the bench with his hoodie over her like a blanket.

With that attended to, Louis is pleased to find that Harry has actually managed to wrest control of the group from their daughter and is demonstrating the proper way to touch one’s toes. When he finishes a six-count, Louis thanks him profusely and they all chorus _thank you, Mr. Harry!_ before Louis begins to give instruction on how to jog in place, first, and then in a little circle around the bench where Lux is sucking her thumb and watching sleepily with nearly-closed eyes.

Millie manages not to fall until Louis gets the football out and sets it on the grass for each child to take an experimental run and kick at, just to test their aim. Most of them miss the ball on their first shot, but Millie misses so spectacularly that Harry wonders aloud whether she might need glasses. Then down she goes, grass stains all down her joggers and embarrassed tears on her cheeks. Harry takes her over to sit with groggy Lux while Louis finishes teaching the rest of them to kick with their instep and not their toes. It’s only when they all simultaneously take a cue from the universe to begin doing the Desperate Wee Dance that Louis decides their first lesson should probably be over.

When they’re home later that night after a pizza party that was much more successful than the actual athletics, Louis washes mud out of Millie’s hair in her bubble bath. She has Pingu plasters on her skinned hip and elbow.

“So,” Louis asks her, shielding her eyes as he rinses her hair, “Did you like football?”

“I like to be outside,” Millie offers evasively.

“I know that, silly little bean. But did you like football? I love football.”

Millie splashes her hands in the water. “I like pizza!”

“I know that, sweetie. Did you not like football?”

“No, I do not. I am fall all the time. I think maybe that I like football? But my feets does not like it.”

Louis chuckles sympathetically and kisses her wet head. “Yeah, I thought maybe that happened. Listen, next week, if you’d like, you can be the mascot instead of playing.”

“What’s is a matt-scot?”

“You can just dance on the sidelines,” Louis explains. “And you like dancing, right? Your feet like it, too?”

“We do like dancing!” Millie exclaims, her eyes lighting up. She kisses Louis on the nose as he lifts her out of the tub and wraps her in a towel to get dry. After he carries her out to the living room to watch telly, she looks up from her swaddling and asks with some great suspicion, “Does matt-scots still gets to eat pizza?”

[](http://statcounter.com/free-web-stats/)


End file.
